Hey-o, I read 157 books in 2024. Goodreads tells me that I gave 14 of those a 5-star rating but looking at that list, I’m not sure how strongly I feel about some of those. I pared them down to 5 that I would confidently recommend to friends and would happily buy a hardback copy for my own collection some day if I ever have room for books ugh.

I just really, sincerely loved this book with my whole heart. Great dialogue, bright characters, a compelling plot. I was tense and also laughing out loud more times than I could keep track of. I would recommend this to either someone who doesn’t read books regularly because it’s a freaking easy read and page-turner, someone in a reading slump, and someone who liked picturing young Bruce Willis as a main character because that is where my mind immediately went from the very start of this book. Blue-collar Bruce Willis trying to save his daughter.

This one broke me.

A horror novel that is actually scary because it’s based on real life events in Jim Crowe Florida. Haunting. Brutal. It will rip your heart out. Recommended only to people who can handle painful and heavy narrative. It is a horror novel but the scariest parts are the things that the living do to the living. This book will live in my head forever.

A sprawling, vivid, surreal Korean tale, and another one that was painful and hard to read at times because of the brutality – especially toward women.

But Jesus, I am so glad I picked this up because the pay-off was huge. I don’t know who I would recommend this to and am honestly not sure if I would have even considered it if I weren’t already into Korean culture. But there is something about Korean novels – IYKYK. If you’re looking for an epic novel that will transport you to someplace violently magical chockful of trigger warnings, then give this one a shot lol.

In a nutshell, this is an epic family drama spanning several generations. 

I was completely invested in every generational POV, my favorite being the one set in the late 90s. There’s also a little bit of magical realism in this which caught me off guard. I think I would recommend this to anyone, really. It’s just that solid.

I was still very freshly mourning the death of my cat Drew when I read this.  It was irreverent and LOL funny, exactly what I needed to keep me from cannon-balling off a parking garage in Chicago. Such a sad sack of a protagonist and I wanted nothing but the best for him. The writing was fresh and smart – would have made me jealous if I still even slightly considered myself a “writer.” Let me just say that I don’t follow many authors on Instagram but I immediately started following Gene Kwak after I read this. Funny, awkward, painful, and uncomfortable encounters; a VERY WTF swimming pool scene; a mother/son road trip; an underlying theme of identity crisis – this book has it all. Ricky is a character I won’t soon forget.  I don’t know who I would specifically recommend this to. You, I guess.

Your turn! Lay your 5 star reads on me.

My mom brought a bagful of photos over to Corey’s in Christmas Eve. I already had copies of most of them because I took all of the photos from my grandparents’ house when we were cleaning it out and they most have had doubles printed of everything to share between houses. I come from a very photo-happy family.

As such, I was letting Corey and Ryan take whatever they wanted but when I came across this shot of Ryan and me with our grandma on the BELOVED DARKRIDE La Cachot, I snatched it up with a quickness. I have never seen this picture before! And for some reason, we don’t have many pictures from our visits to Kennywood which is wild to me.

This ride definitely shaped my love for dark rides; it was a personal favorite of mine as a child and I still get so stoked when we go to an amusement park that has an authentic, vintage dark ride and not these new-fangled shooting rides which I hate. I want something with black lights, hokey K-Mart-esque Halloween masks, Pretzel cars, and the stench of damp basements and moth balls.

I don’t know if this was a Yinzer thing but my friend Keri always called it Lickashit.

They tore down the building in 1998 – for years I thought it was because that it had caught fire but evidently, the plan was always to tear it down because the building was so old and it was deteriorating, I guess (per the below video) and in the process of tearing it down, there was also a fire. IMO, removing this was the beginning of a slew of bad and questionable decisions made by Kennywood. I guess it doesn’t matter who owns the park, dumb moves are still bound to be made. This is making me feel extremely bitter.

(Apparently, you have to watch this video on YouTube.)

But yeah, that’s all I’ve got for this snowy, bitchy Sunday. Back to hypnosis via Enhypen videos.

We I needed to get the fuck out of the house – January is so suffocating. I can’t breathe. Cold. Gray. Wet. Ugh.

So we picked up some buns at Pink Box and then did a quick walking tour at the cemetery before the gates closed.

“TAKE PICTURES OF ME,” I demanded. “I HAVE NO BLOG CONTENT.” Seriously, what am I supposed to be recapping? Every day is the same. Work was annoying and stressful. I got mad about something. Made a shitty lunch. Drank too much coffee. Exercised. Ate soup. Watched k-content. Bed.

Snooze alert.

No commentary or captions other than: it’s us at the cemetery. The end.

Henry bought me a Taemin lightstick for the concert next month. It arrived on Monday and I had to DROP EVERYTHING to search for batteries and then take photos.

I am so ready but also OMG I AM NOT READY!This is Lee Taemin we’re talking about here. Lee Taemin.

DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG I HAVE WAITED FOR THIS.

Every time I have a kpop concert the pipeline I think about making freebies and I never do it because I’m lazy but this time I really going to try to get something done because it’s such a special event and my fellow Taemints / Taemates (I like Taemints better but I guess since he left SM he had to change his fan name) we’re psychologically damaged trying to get tickets for this so I want to contribute to the mutual Taemin love that I know is going to be flowing in full force.

I can’t remember if I mentioned it here but it’s at the Chicago Theater and that place looks so majestic. I asked my work friend Vicki if it’s haunted and she said she wasn’t sure but it has to be. So I’m excited for Taemin, this theater, and getting to stay in actual Chicago proper and not out by the airport like we usually do because the concerts are usually always in the arena out that way. And it is such a sad and boring area but don’t worry, we will be there 3 weeks later for the NCT127 concert lol fucking Chicago man. But still, better than Newark obviously!! Just so tired of that drive.

But still – CHICAGO. Love that damn city. With the exception of the time we went to see ATEEZ in August (and this was nothing to do with ATEEZ and everything to do with me being sincerely suicidal no sugarcoating), I have made so many beautiful memories there. I hope Taemin loves it too. <3

Weekends in January, man. Cold, dreary, gray, boring. But still somehow zip by just as fast as any other weekend, god-fucking-dammit. This past weekend for us was calm and quiet. Henry wanted to make more kimchi (I have been having withdrawals) so we went to our fave Asian market in the Strip (WFH, in case you care) and I was constantly in everyone’s way as usual. It’s like I’m planted in grocery stores as an obstacle for shoppers who actually know what they’re doing.

I mostly just look at the fruit, the drinks, and the snacks of course. They didn’t have my favorite Kit Kats this time (they’re like, wheat biscuits?? I don’t know, I don’t read Japanese, only Korean) but I did snag the milk tea ones again and a new-to-me French Mont Blanc variety which is right up there with the wheat biscuit one now. So delightful. I am not on a mission to have real Mont Blanc after googling it because I am not up on my French desserts but anything chestnut is a greenlight on my dessert highway.

That….actually stopped making sense to me as I was typing it.

Wait also here is some great history on how this French dessert became popular in Japan! 

Because I always have to circle back to Korea, this reminds me of how tiramisu is curiously popular over there. Like, nearly every cafe has some rendition of it and there are even bakeries devoted entirely to tiramisu. As someone who grew up eating homemade and rum-drenched tiramisu made by our family friend from Italy, I can appreciate this!

The only other thing that comes to mind about Saturday is that I, after 40+ years of eating my popcorn this way, suddenly wondered if liberally spraying it with Pam butter spray was a detriment to my health and decided to Google it. According to REDDIT EXPERTS, I should be ok. This is good news because I sincerely don’t think I can break that habit now. My aunt Sharon put me on this path when I was super little and she would make legit popcorn on THE STOVE and then spritz it with Pam.

Then Sunday afternoon, I was like “enough is enough, I gotta spend time outside breathing in the air” so Henry and I went to the cemetery where Barb is buried. Of course because of all the snow, we were unable to see the exact burial site but we did spend some time walking around and I hope she could sense that. I am still not fully finished processing her death – between her and Bambi, within 6 mths, it has been so confusing and traumatizing. I didn’t mention this in the Chingumas post but when I was in the kitchen chatting with Glenn and Sean, Sean goes, “Is Barb Riley coming?”

Glenn and I exchanged nervous glances and I whispered, “Barb passed away last year.”

Sean was like, “NO. Are you being for real? And no one told me??” I felt awful. Just awful.

When I say that these people I work with / have worked with are like family, I mean it. Losing such a prominent mom-figure has been rough on a lot of us, even though she had left the firm so long ago.

I’m big allergic to snow, but look at me. I survived.

Then we went to Crazy Horse Coffee where I had a flat white and we split banana bread. It was nice.  But then I got bored so we came home.

I’m watching Lovely Runner and thought it was funny that one of the characters was wearing a Cincinnati t-shirt because 1. random 2. I was just talking about Cincinnati on the way home from the cafe and also fun fact, I still have to sing the “C-I-N-C-I-N-A-T-T-I” song from the Babes in Toyland remake in my head to be able to spell it.

(Henry just walked out of the room humming the Going Seventeen theme song, pop off Kpop Dad.)

In other extraordinary weekend news, I forgot that the band Cold started following me several years ago when I posted on instagram that I still have a Starburst that their singer gave me in 2000 and then this happened:

I was so excited and sent it to chooch and he thought for a second it was Coldplay and was like “but why.”

I truly don’t think there was anything else of note to write about here. I made some new Kpop cards for Etsy and Henry did a trial run of pendants that were trying to make in an effort to expand our inventory.

Being at an age where time feels so precious I hate saying that I can’t wait for winter to be over but I truly hate it so much. I miss the simple things like being able to comfortably go for walks in the morning, you know? The simple things.

Anyway. That was my weekend. Boring but cozy I guess.

Happy random Monday in January. I have been obsessed with the BooSeokSoon comeback since last week and that has been keeping me properly infected with joy during these cold, gray days.

In case anyone is actually reading this and cares, BooSeokSoon (BSS) is a sub-unit of Seventeen – Boo Seungkwan, Lee Seokmin (DK), and Kwon Soonyoung (Hoshi). They are basically the nation’s cheerleaders if we’re being honest. One of their older songs, Fighting, was the official song that played for Team Korea during the last Summer Olympics. It’s like THAT.

They’ve been making the rounds on all of the music shows but so far this one is my favorite because I love Seungkwan’s weird little yodel in the beginning lol:

Hopefully this cheers you up if you were having a bad day!

And in case you were wondering Henry’s stance on BSS, he stans. So, I bought him a BSS hat for Christmas :)

Wow. Pop off, Kpop Dad.

Henry actually likes Seventeen in general so much that he has rejected my invitation to start stanning Enhypen and Zerobaseone. He’s a devoted Carat and sends me Seventeen reels all day long.

Anyway, that’s all I have for today, a gross Monday in January that started off with an 8AM dentist appointment, UGH what was I thinking when I scheduled that?? Less than an hour after I walked home, I looked out the window and it was a white-out out there so I’m really glad I didn’t get caught in that, sheesh.

Wow, that title was lame even for me. Please accept my apologies.

Anyway, I read these books in December while counting down the end of a shitty year.

1. Eight Hundred Grapes – Laura Dave

I was double-fisting the Laura Dave to kick off December. I remember really enjoying her novel “The Last Thing He Told Me” and saw that she has a new one out, so I started to read that AND THEN I saw that the audio for this one was available on Hoopla. It’s an older one and I thought it was just OK. Probably just because it was giving the TV show Brothers & Sisters vibes because of the family vineyard story line. It was a lot of family drama, small town characters, runaway bride with little pay off. Also, I made the mistake of reading a review where someone pointed out that she writes in fragments a lot of the time and then I couldn’t stop noticing that, like she learned how to write from LiveJournal in 2001. Not the worst book but I would only recommend as maybe an option for a flight or train ride, I don’t know. This is not my profession.

2. The Night We Lost Him – Laura Dave

This is the new one and it was better – way more mystery vibes. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a thriller. I was very invested in this for the first half and then it did lose steam for me. I couldn’t connect well with the main character and as such it turned into a “figure it out or don’t, I don’t really care” type of read for a bit but I was back into it by the end and glad that I stuck it out.

3. Heads Will Roll – Josh Winning

Even after re-reading the synopsis, I couldn’t remember actually reading this book at first?! But now I remember and it was decent – better than his other book, Burn the Negative. It has a “summer camp for adults who need to detox from social media” kind of plot, but of course there’s a killer in the woods gunning for all of them. Now that I’m remembering this book, I can confirm that there were times when I was genuinely creeped out by the imagery but I did think all of the characters were extremely corny and written as caricatures. And when we finally find out why the main character was “cancelled,” it was kind of anticlimactic.

4. A Good Happy Girl – Marissa Higgins

I gave this a 2. This whole unhinged and confused single girl in her 20s trope is wearing on me. Also, I’m 45 and not single (albeit unhinged and confused) so I am definitely not the target audience here but I have liked books from this niche genre in the past. This one is mostly about a depressed woman trying to fill a void by being the third wheel in a lesbian couple’s marriage and it is so uncomfortable and actually gross a lot of the time, to be honest, and I have a pretty high tolerance for reading about kinks, etc. I should have known from the cover, tbh.

5. Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books – Kirsten Miller

Entertaining and with a message! I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The characters were rich and real, I was rooting for the good guys so hard, swearing at the racist bigots, and laughing out loud at the absolute havoc this little library was creating around town. This one I do recommend.

6. Heartstopper Vol. 5 – Alice Oseman

The Netflix show has kind of gotten on my nerves, but this book series is still so solid. I  think it would have been semi-life changing if it had been available when I was a kid.

7. Mr. Fox – Helen Oyeyemi

4.5. God, I love Helen Oyeyemi with my whole heart. The things she does with the English language is ABSURD. SORCERY. Sometimes I think she is an absolute psychopath. I can’t explain it – you just have to read one of her books to understand and godspeed if you do. The first time I read a book by her, I thought I hated it until it occurred to me that I just hated how stupid it made me feel, but not in a dark academia sense. You have to go into her books with the understanding that it will stretch your brain like laffy taffy, it will make you yell WHAT AM I READING, and it will be so rewarding in the end. As someone who admittedly spends too much time doom-scrolling, every Oyeyemi book is like a reset for my mind. It reminds me that at one time, I was kind of smart. I was good at English. I liked to read challenging things.

8. Perfume & Pain – Anna Dorn

Unlike that “A Good Happy Girl’ trash I read earlier in the month (which comes up as “readers also enjoyed” for this book on Goodreads LOL), this one did it for me enough that I gave it a 3. I had fun reading it, I rooted for Astrid and wanted so badly for her to get her life back on track. I loved the cast of characters she had orbiting her. Plus, the cover speaks to me. This would have been a good vacation book.

9. Rental House – Weike Wang

This is the second book of Wang’s that I’ve read and they both have a similar disassociated kind of vibe going on with the main character. Keru was pretty unlikable (I mean, even the dog prefers the husband over her) but I still just wanted good things for her. There really isn’t much of a plot to talk about – it starts with a married couple sharing a rental house with both sets of parents during the pandemic – Keru’s Chinese parents come for the first half and Nate’s white / American parents come the second half and the atmosphere is very different for both but the universal sense of OVERBEARING INLAWS is the same.

The second half of the book finds the couple several years later renting another vacation house and having strange interactions with a family of three in the house next door and then an unexpected family visitor. It was actually pretty stressful. I don’t know that I would actively recommend this to anyone but I did give it a 4.

10. The Midnight Feast – Lucy Foley

Truthfully, I could not follow along with this. Between mixing up the characters and a general ambivalence toward the story itself, I have realized that it’s time to put Foley on my DNR list because all of her books up until now have been major wastes of time for me. I even tried the audio and that was somehow worse. Hated it.

11. Greta & Valdin – Rebecca K. Reilly 

A boring book about two siblings who are roommates and the brother is obsessed with his ex-boyfriend who is also the brother of some guy married to his uncle or something?! You know it’s going to be bad when the book starts with a literal WHO’S WHO and some of the characters inexplicably have the same name.

The only parts I liked was when Romania was referenced here and there.

12. Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance – Alison Espach

So….I only read this because I’m waiting for the library to get her new book The Wedding People which has been very buzzworthy of late and some of my friends have rated it highly. Now I’m nervous because I lowkey hated this book. I gave it 1 star for the sheer amount of times I rolled my eyes. It’s narrated by the younger sister of the girl who “disappeared,” and it starts in elementary school and works its way up to present day. The elementary school era of the book seems to drag on for-fucking-ever for apparent reason other than to build a foundation for the readers to see that the sisters have a close (?) relationship. Or used to. It honest to god just drones on and on though and is cheesy and aggravating, to be quite frank. To the point that when  the “disappearance” happens, I was so simultaneously relieved and also underwhelmed. Sure, it was sad but like…

I don’t know. I think this year (2024) burnt me out.

Bye.

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Dear Friday Blog Readers,

Hello, are you out there?

I mentioned in my Chingumas post that Henry made me a doorbell finally after years of me saying that I wanted a very specific Kraftwerk song as a doorbell and he just finally decided that he would work on that this past November and because nothing ever is easy around here, it turned into a much bigger project than he had hoped for it to be, requiring him to go into the basement and run wires through the wall, etc.

That was fun for him, probably. I mean, what else would he be doing? Sitting in his underroos, eating cereal and watching NCIS? LOL yeah right, he’d be doing one of the other 259 projects on the list, probably.

I had a fleeting thought about blueberries and my eyes started burning with tears so I guess blueberries are still on the No No List because I relate them to Bambi. Is it abnormal that I am still crying every day over her death?

Another thing I’m upset about is the LA wildfires – I can’t think about it without crying and losing my mind. Of course I feel terribly for the people, and the animal lover in me is broken just thinking about the pets and wildlife. I can’t handle it. Sometimes I wish I lacked empathy for real haha. Ugh.

Penelope is very much in her Enhypen era. If I put their videos on she will stop and stare at the TV. So now I started getting more heavily into stanning them and she accused me of copying her.

I miss him. :(

I think I’m in an OK place right now, mentally. I feel more stable and calmer than I have in honestly more than a year. Part of me wonders if I’m just numb, but I don’t think so because I still feel about 60% sad on a daily basis – so I’m definitely still feeling things. But it’s just a general “sad about the world” feeling that can’t really be helped. I saw someone post on Instagram that they have guilt – similar to survivor’s guilt I guess – because they’re still waking up every day and going to work while tragedy is happening all over the world. How do you move past that?? Because this is where I am now. Not knowing what to say or how to help.

On that note, these are pretty much the only things that were on my mind today so now I’m going to go and desensitize myself with Kpop content & start gathering pictures for my Taemin freebies that I’m making for his concert next month. Because if anything is going to make me feel at peace, it’s looking at Taemin’s face. <3

CHINGUS up here in the JIP

• Corey
• Amy & Dick
• Kara
• Janna
• Glenn & Amanda
• Chris & Monica
• Jill & Jack
• Wendi, Ben & BABY ROONEY
• Wendy
• Zakk
• Amber & Steve
• Lori
• Margie
• Cara
• Lauren
• Sean!

OK I’m going to be a sentimental bitchbaby here, probably for the duration of the whole post. I have looked at these pictures so m any times and felt so happy for truly one of the only times in the past year. The power of friends, you guys. They made me feel less alone in dark times just by sending simple texts (and also being a kitten scout – Kara!), but having them filling my house with laughter was THE TRUE MEANING OF CHINGUMAS. And even better is that I was able to hassle some of them into downloading the Party! camera app so that we could all see each other’s pictures the next morning and it was so fucking fun! It makes me want to have a fake wedding now so that we can use it on a grander scale, lol. Almost all of the photos in this post are from that app which is how I’m actually in pictures from my own party for once!

This wasn’t taken with the app, but here I am with my sibs Corey and Amy! Amy was super excited to sample all of the Korean beer and makgeolli!

Succulents from Jill <3

LOL tteokbokki smudge on my GD goblet. (I WAS DRINKING CASS AND I LIKED IT! Henry had it a few times in Korea and I had a sip once and said, “Wow, that’s actually not bad for beer” but now that I am a real beer drinker – haha – I appreciate it more.)

Actually, I don’t believe that anyone had any soju! Unless they weren’t using the shot glasses, I dunno!

Rooney was a fan of my clown town house :)

A lot of the pictures turned out this way because I was running into rooms, snapping and retreating. Also, some people (WENDY) didn’t know how to turn the flash off so some of these are a real treat and I was cry-laughing while looking through them!

Even Margie used it!!!

Zakk is Chooch’s Janna. He drags him over here every year for my holiday parties and Zakk is probably like, “Jesus Christ when can I go home?” Also, Chooch went to the store for me that day because I needed, well, everything and also I told him to get get a non-alcoholic holiday punch like the kind that Corey was pushing on him from Trader Joe’s on Xmas Eve. But Chooch couldn’t find anything pre-made at Walmart so he googled and found a “Jingle Bell Punch” recipe and subsequently came home with OJ, apple juice, cranberry juice and then had to go back out for Ginger ale. Also, I was going to go to CVS to get some bags of hopefully marked-down Christmas candy but Chooch said he would handle that too and came home with two big $15 bags of Kisses and Miniatures that weren’t IN HOLIDAY WRAPPERS. $30 for two bags of candy!!

But he did get Dolly Parton holiday plates, so that was something.

Cara stood with her purse on for a long time and I was afraid that meant she was going to leave early but she was one of the last to leave, phew. (She did eventually sit down next to Margie.)

SEAN CAME!! And he wore his BLAME HENRY pin from yesteryear. I saw him walk in and screamed from the back porch because I haven’t seen him since my last pre-covid Xmas party in 2019 when I didn’t want to have a party but Wendy made me. “Just have a small one. Invite Sean,” she said. Wendy is always strong-arming me into these things!

We must have been having a serious conversation. Also, Chris (& Monica!) always has the best hair.

Chooch was getting pelted with college questions all night long and learned that Lauren’s sister also went to Drexel!

Did I mention yet that we have a new doorbell that Henry made for me and I was getting so militant about people ringing the doorbell upon entry that if they failed to do so, I would shout at them to go back outside and try again?? Looking back, I feel like I yell at my guests at every party which begs the question: WHY DO MY FRIENDS KEEP COMING BACK? I’m such a party asshole!

Anyway, Margie in particular was like, “I didn’t see a doorbell! Where is it??”

“WHERE DOORBELLS ARE, MARGIE!” I cried. “IT IS LITERALLY LIT UP!”

All of this chaos over a lunatic doorbell.

Eventually, I wasn’t in the living room anymore and Kara took over as doorbell marshal. Between this and years of taking charge with reading the directions at game night, Kara is basically my second in command! Next year, I’m going to have special vest for herto wear, a la elementary school hall monitors, for when she’s on doorbell duty!

That’s Jill behind Amanda – I didn’t get any good photos of her, ugh! This was also her first time at my house and she is still chatting with me on Teams so I guess I didn’t completely scare her away. Meanwhile, Rooney and Jack played on the back porch and were both little delights. Chingumas is all ages, you guys!

The alcohol is NOT all ages though, lol.

This Party! camera is so weird – some pictures came out lovely and others look like I charged up my 2007 Blackberry for the night.

This was 100% when I was making Chris and Monica join the Party! camera. Monica started to do it and then said to Chris, “I’ll just let you handle this.” LOL.

I DON’T BELIEVE JANNA ASKED PERMISSION TO LAUGH.

Thoughtful trifle dissecting.

These pictures are definitely out of order.

Blurry but keeping! Lauren brought me a hostess gift from the Olive Tap – Sorrento lemon olive oil, which Henry quickly claimed was actually a gift for him and has been obsessing over it ever since. “No one ever brings me a gift!” he cried happily and when I reminded him that she gave it to me, he brushed me off and said, “Yeah, but she knows that I am the one who will be using it!”

He was even googling uses for it the other night and it was so annoying.

Old school work reunion!

Also, I love that we’re able to utilize the back porch and kitchen now because party guests can spread out – I remember our Xmas party in 2016 was one of the only times when every single person I ininvited actually showed up and, being contained to just the living room and dining room, it was such a fire hazard probably.

This was when I made Janna go back upstairs and come back so I could get a picture lol.

YES! Inkigayo sandwiches and a Kloud! Wendy was doing it right.

Everyone was reading the old “Book of Henry” that Chooch and I made, ugh, probably 10+ years ago!? I was so happy that it was getting read after all these years, and it was fun to retell old Henry stories, lol.

I can’t believe Monica agreed to hold a baby!

Amber and Lauren were work-gossiping which is the worst thing to when I’m within ear shot because I kept whipping around and saying things like, “WHO?” “WHEN?”

Anyway, Amber and her husband Steve came here straight from Steve’s work party which was a formal event. I was on the back porch when I saw them walk in and had NO IDEA who they were.

This looks like secrets are being spilled.

I truly can’t believe they sat through this all night.

LOL Corey took this picture of SERVICE ERA HENRY on the fridge.

They were playing some game, I don’t even know.

I dunno who brought these, but they were so good!

Corey’s sloppy plate. (I am sincerely so happy with how the trifle came out!)

OMG MORE SECRETS.

Is someone telling ME a secret now!?

Corey sat in that wheelchair for a long time.

LOL Margie took this of Janna.

I don’t even care about my massive double chin here – I was so giddy when Margie took this so it’s staying! This was when I was trying to help Amber download the Party! camera and she wanted a selfie with me to use as her profile picture and it took eleventy thousand tries.

Chronica foot selfie.

I know exactly what I’m doing here! I’m saying JANNA YOU IDIOT THE BOTTLE OPENER IS RIGHT THERE.

All of these adults orbiting the two teenagers all night, beer in hand.

My favorite thing about my parties is that all my friends from different circles end up talking to each other.

Wendy could NOT get her flash turned off!

LOL Lauren.

Me being an Inkigayo Sandwich server.

…and probably also me being an Inkigayo Sandwich defender!

Corey loves to get me going with old Janna stories and I was seriously almost peeing my pants telling the back porch crew about her Robitussin scandal, the time I made cupcakes for game night and made a “special” one for her, and the infamous Poopy Birthday Cake we made for her as a surprise many moons ago. This was me showing off the picture of it, which inspired questions like, “Why is there a Santa spitting out poop?” WHY INDEED.

This picture sums it all up!

Meanwhile, Kara pointed out that all of these years everyone has been like, “Oh poor Henry.”

“But what about Janna?” Kara asked.

“Justice for Janna!” Amanda said, and I almost peed my pants again.

I love this picture so much.

<3

Lori! I walked through the kitchen at one point while Henry was asking her questions about her house and I took that opportunity to offer up Henry’s handyman services, then kept going about my business.

Everyone but Janna and Corey had left by midnight so this was the after-party. It felt so good to lay back on this chair and relax. This was also the FIRST AND ONLY picture Chooch took using the Party! camera the whole night, because he had JUST DOWNLOADED IT right then. So annoying.

I did have a panic attack that night when I was trying to go to sleep which was weird because I did not feel one iota of stress the entire night. Maybe it was just social overload. Maybe that means I shouldn’t wait until the end of the year to hang out with all of my friends in one go??

I also felt that this year’s was a lot better than last year’s. I missed the people from last year who couldn’t attend this time, but I just felt so much calmer overall and when I think back to last year’s, I feel like I didn’t talk to anyone. This year, I had some good chats with pretty much everyone and it just felt really good. It was a good way to end a not so great year – with the reminder that if you have good friends in your life, things can’t be all that bad.

CHINGUMAS! CHINGUMAS!

Henry got me this Seoul skyline ring for Christmas and it is so special. <3

In other news, I made Henry do a Paul Eugene seniors aerobic walk to the oldies workout tonight because god love Paul Eugene. We were doing low kicks when Penelope walked into the room. Henry jokingly pretended to (gently) kick.

Right then, Paul Eugene said, “Don’t kick the kitty!”

I really needed that moment of levity so much today!

Anyway, this has been a general Tuesday in the life of Erin.

For this year’s Chingumas, I thought it would be cute to make party favors so I bought some cute gift bags, filled them with thoughtful Korean treats, Ediya instant coffee sticks (Ediya is a really popular cafe chain in Korea, and forget what you think you know about instant coffee because Korean instant coffee is actually really good! I used to keep a box in my desk at work because whatever coffee we were provided with the coffee machine on each floor was…not good.). I spent weeks procuring the contents, and then a few more weeks convincing Henry to pose for pictures that we could turn into pocas  (photo cards) to also include.

LOL.

Henry also made little pots of vegan kimchi (original and cucumber-style) and I made labels for them because it’s the least I can do when a project involves food.

One of my favorite Korean treats is patbingsu, which is made of the softest, snowiest shaved ice, and flavored with pat (sweet red bean paste which is a staple in Asian desserts and one of my favorite flavors ever) and injeolmi – soft rice cakes covered in sweet soy bean powder which has a lightly sweet and nutty flavor. I had the great idea of taking that and making it into a trifle. Henry replaced the shaved ice with a sweet cream similar to that found in Korean bbang (bread/buns), the bottom layer was made of Choco Pie, a middle layer was crumbled matcha Choco Pie since matcha is also a very popular bingsu flavor, and then of course the pat layer. We topped it with just injeolmi and not more pat because people are weirded out by sweet red beans! It’s crazy to me how many people were like “nope, that’s disgusting” when I got to the red bean part of the ingredient explanation and am grateful to Kara who backed me up on the delicious “don’t knock it till you try it” virtues of pat.

This is patbingsu in its original form ^^^

And this is our trifle version of it:

We always included a small carafe of condensed milk to drizzle over each serving, a la the true Korean-style.

In full disclosure, Henry and I 100% were winging it. He did a trial run of the injeolmi a week before, but we left the rest up to fate and I am happy to say that it turned out better than I could have imagined! All of the flavors worked well. The Choco Pie soaked up some of the cream so it was moist and provided just the right amount of texture. Sorry to those who were too wimpy to try it because OMG beans. Ya gotta have at least SOME sense of adventure & willingness to try new things if you come to a party celebrating Asian culture!

The next contentious item was the mini Inkigayo sandwiches we made.

These sandwiches are very beloved in our family. The short version is that they used to be served in the cafeteria of the TV station that airs the weekly Inkigayo music show. Inkigayo means “popular song” and the show is sort of like TRL, to give it American context. These sandwiches were super popular with idols and there is even some lore behind them that idols were using them to covertly give out their phone numbers to other idols since everything has to be done secret because of dating bans in their contracts.

When fans found out about this, it made them want to try the sandwiches but they were not available to the public. Various convenience stores started making their own versions of the “idol sandwich” and we ate the fuck out of them the first two times we were in Korea. I heard that the cafeteria no longer makes them, possibly because the creator of the recipe no longer works there? Anyway, we loved them so much that Henry found a recipe and started making them for us to eat on Easter – Eastergayo sandwiches, lol.

I made these cutie foodpick flags from screenshots of actual Inkigayo footage.

The OG recipe has imitation crab meat, so Henry made some like that too and put it on a separate plate with different food picks in them to differentiate. I think everyone who tried one liked it but there were still a bunch of people were like BIG NOPE.

And to that I say BIG SHRUG.

(Although there was someone who said they just genuinely don’t like egg salad I think so I will let that one slide!)

My black sesame shortbread cookies! I loved how these turned out – they had the nostalgic texture of a Keebler Sandies, sort of?? And they weren’t too sweet which I really appreciated. Also, I say “my” cookies because it was idea to make them but all I did was order the cookie cutter and send Henry the recipe LOL.

KIMBAP FOR DAYS. We put vegan bulgogi and smoked tofu in some of them. I told Henry he had to make extra this year because last year we ran out very early into the party, and of course our biggest kimbap fans didn’t come this time so we had so much left. I wasn’t complaining though because I could live on kimbap so I ate very well for the next few days!

The one thing, my actual favorite thing, that I failed to photograph was the crockpot chockful of tteokbokki that we left on the kitchen counter. I love tteokbokki and would happily eat it every day if I wasn’t so hyper-conscious of my waistline. It is always the first thing I eat when we get to Korea! There is nothing in the world like a paper cup of tteokbokki served straight from a street food cart by an ahjumma. It is my favorite comfort food right up there with grilled cheese and now I’m wondering why I have never combined the two?!?! Tteokbooki halves inside of a grilled cheese?!?!

SHOULD THIS BE NEXT YEAR’S CHINGUMAS FINGER SANDWICH!?

FFEOK ME UP, TTEOK.

^^^ Actual footage of tteokbokki that we ate in Namdaemun Market on our wedding day! <3

Ugh, I love so many things about Korea and just want to spend the rest of my life sharing that with my friends no matter how hard they resist.

Here’s the box of treat bags and kimchi that sat there ALL NIGHT until I locked the door after the last person left at 1:30am and noticed it. I hadn’t given out the favors to a single fucking party person the entire night. Literally screamed, “MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRR!!!” and then could barely sleep that night. Luckily, with the help of Chooch, a/k/a Mr. Always Looking for a Reason to Take the Car, I have successfully delivered these to most everyone at this point.

I’m excited for the next post, which is just a collection of pictures of my friends Chingu’ing it up with other. We really put so much effort into these parties, even crossing state lines (3x!) to round up Korean beer, and it means so much to me when people show up for this. Even when I yell at them for not ringing the doorbell and make them go outside and try again, or scold people for calling kimbap “sushi”* – I know I get a “little” out of control but it’s just in my nature! And if I’m having a Korean-themed party, it’s only right that I commit to the cause! I think everyone is used to it. “We’re going to Erin’s to get yelled at and have curious foods shoved in our faces. Not to mention constant kpop** in the background.”

Thanks for indulging me!

*(Next year I’ll have information sheets pasted throughout the house, but until then, here’s some facts to prove that they are different and I do believe that it would be pretty offensive to call it sushi in front of Korean, but that’s just me having thin skin when it comes to defending Korea I guess.)

**(here’s the playlist of YouTube videos which you will note is a BTS-free zone lol.)

Booooo, we took Chooch back to Philly today. Unlike after Thanksgiving, this was a much better experience. Drove straight there. No fighting. Everyone was in a good mood. I helped Chooch take his stuff back to his room and organized his stack of games while I was at it because they were encroaching on his roommate’s side of the room.

Then we went to Nourish for a late vegan lunch and it was gooooood.

Buffalo wings and scallops to start.

Henry’s Philly steak or whatever. (It was fucking magnificent.)

Chooch had a chik’un Philly cheesesteak thing which I tasted after I had already declared mine the best of the bunch and now I’m just not sure because that seasoning, the peppers, the sauce. Sheesh.

LOOK AT THIS THICC BOY ARE U KIDDING. I have never had a sandwich that tall before.

Not even the Inkigayo!

It took me OUT. I ate half and honestly probably could have housed the rest but Henry gave me the “you’ll get sick” speech so I tapped out and am already anticipating polishing it off later tonight on the road.

Chooch walking the streets of Philly in his Seahawks hoodie and Minion crocs. Sigh.

I briefly got to see one of his friends he’ll be living with next year and then he quickly hugged me and that was that…

…until he came running back to the car because he lost his room key in the backseat and found it lodged inside the middle console thingie. Jesus Christ, him and keys, wallets, and debit cards. I can’t.

ETA Sheetz over Wawa everyday all day long. Fuck Wawa, truly.

First Friday Five of the New Year, what’s good yo.

1. My Top Nine of 2024

I had already checked out my Top 9 earlier in the month, but now you apparently have to pay to UNLOCK the middle picture? Too bad I already know that it’s the picture of my Bambi memorial tattoo, nice try Diddy.

I feel that these are pretty self-explanatory but:

1. Married in Korea
2. Chooch’s last day of high school
3. Chooch’s graduation
4. Chooch’s first day of senior (wow, a theme you say)
5.  :(
6. Chooch’s graduation party
7. Bambi’s memorial IG post :(
8. Making our wedding bands in Korea
9. A click-bait re: Chooch letting me buy him a jacket in Korea because it was March and chilly and he only packed t-shirts per his norm.

2. We Got a Rug

….we got a rug. It doesn’t fit the entire back porch but it covers most of the cold cement that wasn’t already covered by another rug. I like this. It was cheap and fits the bill. And so PINK! It arrived just in time for Chingumas which was nice because the weather was mild enough to use the porch as a “party annex” and the rug made it feel so cozy.

3. Suprise Package

My co-worker Amanda sent me this cute squirrel dish towel set for Christmas and I thought that was really nice. And speaking of my squirrels.

One of my neighborhood squirrels came to the porch last week, begging for walnuts. I started to open the door to put walnuts in his bowl (literally a small pet food bowl that I keep on a chair on the porch – they’re so spoiled) but one of my neighbors was outside so I didn’t want to get stuck talking. Instead, I opened the door a bit and tossed some walnuts onto the porch….

Buddy jumped off the chair, sniffed the walnuts, stood up at my front door with his paw on the window, gave me A LOOK (I swear to God) and then jumped back on the chair next to his bowl. He wouldn’t eat the walnuts off the ground because he wanted them in his bowl!! They have me wrapped around their creepy little fingers!

4. Petty Post-Christmas Feelings

Although, I have confirmed with several people and my therapist that my feelings are valid. But on Christmas Eve, I had taken a large bottle of Delirium Noel to Corey’s house so that we could all enjoy it with dinner. My mom didn’t have any of it, so I was surprised the next day when she texted me some questions about it, i.e. where I bought it, how much. I was so stoked about this because silly me, I thought she was showing an interest in something that I clearly based on my exuberant Belgian beer gushing at Christmas Eve dinner.

But no, she was just interested because her best friend’s daughter who she is like obsessed with and likes so much more than me “likes beer” – just “beer” in general I guess so presumably my mom is going to get her a bottle or tell her about it, or adopt her as her own daughter and turn the attic into one large bedroom for her with a slide that goes down into my old bedroom which will be converted into a walk-in closet/lounge area which was something that I wanted to happen when I still lived at home BUT NEVER DID probably because my dad intervened, who knows.

But yeah, I’m jealous of a girl I only met once when I was in my 20s and she was like, who knows, 5 or something and even then my mom was smitten with her and me, the 20-something year old, got so upset at my mom’s house when we were all over there one summer afternoon that I hid for hours underneath the antique roll-top desk in the living room and no one cared except for Corey, and Henry’s sons, who were all in elementary school at the time, and they were the only ones trying to find me.

Suddenly, a text message about Delirium had me wanting to hide under antique furniture all over again, age 45.

I talked about this in therapy yesterday because my therapist knew I was anxious about seeing my mom on Christmas Eve and I just started pouring it all out of my brain and heart and she was like, “This is really unfortunate because you live such a cool and colorful life and you and Henry are always going places and doing fun stuff, but she doesn’t show any interest in knowing this about you.” And that’s it for me, exactly. What else can I do? Nothing really. I have to just live the best life I can for myself, for Henry, and for Chooch and that has to be enough. I know this deep down and I know that with a lot of hard work therapy will eventually help me with that but everything still feels so raw like it was yesterday that I moved out of her house.

HAHAHA FAMILY AMIRITE.

5. End of a (sweet) era

Our Sugarspell Scoops friends are temporarily closing shop here soon because they were not able to come to an agreement with their landlord, so we stopped by last weekend to stock on some pints and give them some Kpop Dad’s (Vegan) Kimchi, haha.  I have loved supporting these guys over the years and am confident that once they find a new location, people will follow.

Anyway, we got a Ho-Hos pint and dammit if it doesn’t actually taste like frozen Ho-Hos in ice cream! It made me nostalgic because I can’t remember the last time I had a Ho-Ho (they were my faves as a kid until I discovered Zebra Cakes in the middle school cafeteria) and I attribute much of baby-fat to those delicious rolls of processed sugar.

——————————-

A BONUS PICTURE OF PENELOPE THROUGH THE CHRISTMAS LENS:

New Year’s Eve was relatively boring and lowkey which is really all I wanted because I wasn’t feeling celebratory by any means. Henry and I just watched kpop stuff and had like, 1.5 drinks. We go hard.

But then Chooch started messing around with stuff on his new phone, for example, he made an emoji that looks nothing like me by putting in “woman crying” because that’s me.

Then he showed me a picture he made of his friend Zakk as a farmer using Apple AI and I was like OOOH MAKE ONE OF JANNA HOLDING POOP IN HER HANDS AND IT’S BEING SQUEEZED THROUGH HER FINGERS!!

I laughed so hard that it turned into a really painful wheeze. Apparently poop is a banned word so he had to use manure.

This was supposed to be Janna sick and slurping Robitussin.

But he said it wouldn’t accept the sick command and he had to get creative with Robitussin, nevertheless Corey knew exactly what it was supposed to be and died along with me when I sent it to him that night lol.

LOL the nose specifically is so accurate. Uncanny.

this was supposed to be in Korea holding a lightstick but all variations of SK and Seoul are banned, but it took the lightstick portion very literally!

I tied this is a few weeks ago in Instagram but it wouldn’t give me any results for “Danny Bonaduce dressed as a clown on a toilet” so I quit.

I hated 2024 A LOT a lot. It was full of death, stress, college tuition hardships, mental and emotional breakdowns that had me wishing death upon myself more times than I can count most vividly in a parking garage outside of Chicago where I had the scariest fleeting thoughts of “what if I just jumped?”, all while trying to get comfortable in this new chapter of life where Chooch doesn’t live here anymore. I haven’t felt this out of control since my early 20s. This past year made me lose myself in ways that are terrifying and I have spent the second half of 2024 working through that in therapy but so far I still feel the same.

Yeah, there were good moments but the bad / tragic / traumatic really do overshadow what looks like it could have been one of the best years of my life. I don’t even have the energy to recap those moments so instead here is a picture of me casually blending into a rug and wishing it would just completely engulf me forever. C H E E R S.

I hope 2025 is gentle on all of us.